FELICE & BOUDLEAUX BRYANT

(1925–2003 / 1920–1987)
MUSIC ::: SONGWRITERS ::: GRAM

Some artists become stars. Others write the songs that define generations. Felice and Boudleaux Bryant were among the greatest songwriting teams in American history, creating an extraordinary catalog that forever changed the sound of American popular music. Songs like "Bye Bye Love," "Wake Up Little Susie," "All I Have to Do Is Dream," "Take a Message to Mary," "Bird Dog," and "Love Hurts" helped launch the Everly Brothers while finding new voices through Elvis Presley, Buddy Holly, Bob Dylan, Gram Parsons, Emmylou Harris, Nazareth, and hundreds of others. In 1950, they also became pioneers of Nashville itself, among the first people to move there intending to make their living solely as professional songwriters.

For Gram Parsons, the Bryants' songs represented everything he believed American music could be. They ignored the artificial boundaries separating country, rock & roll, folk and pop, allowing a single song to travel effortlessly from one generation to the next. When Gram Parsons and Emmylou Harris recorded "Love Hurts" for Grievous Angel, they weren't reinventing a classic—they were revealing its timelessness. The Bryants had written songs that belonged to everyone long before anyone thought to call that idea Cosmic American Music.

For Motherlode, Felice and Boudleaux Bryant remind us that revolutions often begin quietly. Long before audiences discovered Gram Parsons, they had already been singing Bryant songs. If Gram spent his career reconnecting the scattered branches of American music, the Bryants had already written many of the songs that grew on every one of those branches. Their greatest achievement wasn't simply creating hit records. It was proving that a truly great song never belongs to just one genre.